Charlie Trotter being sued for selling ‘fake’ Romanée-Conti

Chicago-based celebrity chef Charlie Trotter is being sued for allegedly selling two collectors a magnum of fake Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.

Bekim and Ilir Frrokaj paid £30,000 last June for what Trotter had claimed was a magnum of 1945 DRC from the chef’s now defunct Michelin-starred restaurant, Charlie Trotter’s in Chicago.

The pair only learnt that the bottle was fake when they tried to have it insured and counterfeit wine specialist Maureen Downey told them the wine had no value.

At the Frrokajs’ request, Downey travelled to the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in Burgundy where co-owner, Aubert de Villaine, confirmed the assessment.

In the run up to the closure of Charlie Trotter’s last August, Trotter sold a number of bottles from the restaurant’s stellar cellar to interested wine collectors.

According to the lawsuit, filed yesterday in a US District Court in Chicago, de Villaine confirmed that the DRC magnum was counterfeit because Domaine de la Romanée-Conti only produced small yields in 1945 and as a result didn’t produce any magnums that year.